Eyes on the Street

Update: A witness to this crash contacted Streetsblog. His account has been added to the post.

As Streetsblog readers know, Inwood is the Manhattan neighborhood where DOT periodically and without warning takes away bike infrastructure. So locals were pleased when in 2013 DOT announced a handful of modest bike projects for Inwood and Washington Heights, including Upper Manhattan's first protected bike lane, and the rehabbing of bike lanes on Seaman Avenue, which parallels Broadway from Riverside Drive to W. 218th Street and leads to and from the Hudson River Greenway.

"The Vanishing Game" is a Range Rover ad posing as a book. What a fitting title for this takeover of the pedestrian plaza at 14th Street and Ninth Avenue, a sizable area of which disappeared over the weekend under a couple of luxury SUVs.

According to DOT, as of November 7 the maximum legal speed on 90 percent of city streets is 25 miles per hour or lower. Regarding the criteria for exceptions to the new 25 mph default speed limit, a DOT FAQ sheet reads as follows:

DOT has striped and painted an important greenway connection on one block of East 37th Street, which received the support of Manhattan Community Board 6 last month. DOT began installing the bike lane this week, and the agency says the full project will be complete by the end of next week.

The Hudson River Greenway is supposed to be a place where New Yorkers can walk and bike without fear of being hit by motorists. But this is not the case, as regular greenway users are well aware. Caught on camera today by Shelly Mossey, this cab driver was on the bikeway to the south of the NYPD tow pound.

I've taken up the early morning walk habit, and my route takes me through the intersection of Seaman Avenue and W. 214th Street, in Inwood. It's a T intersection with an unmarked crosswalk and curb cuts.

After a request from 78th Precinct commanding officer Captain Frank DiGiacomo, DOT has installed a four-rack bike corral in front of the precinct house on Bergen Street in Prospect Heights. N. Wayne Bailey, chair of the precinct's community council, snapped photos of the new bike parking yesterday.

Here's a reminder of why the city can't roll out street design changes fast enough. Last night, a driver turning left through the crosswalk from West 97th Street to West End Avenue struck a bollard on a pedestrian island that had been installed just days before. According to West Side Rag, the woman told police that she did not see the bollard before driving into it.